Judge Voids Decision to Close LICH hospital

Long Island College Hospital lives to treat patients another day after a State Supreme Court judge in Brooklyn annulled SUNY Downstate Medical Center’s decision to close LICH. Supporters of LICH had filed a petition to stop SUNY Downstate’s efforts to close the hospital, arguing that SUNY Downstate’s Board of Trustees had violated the state Open Meetings law during the decision-making process. Justice Johnny Lee Baynes agreed, ruling that the Executive Session during the Board of Trustees’ deliberations had been held inappropriately. “The timing of entry into executive session almost immediately after commencing the meeting of the Committee,” Justice Baynes wrote in his decision, “without any specificity as to the purpose of the Executive Session, appears also to be specifically designed to deny the public the transparency guaranteed by the Open Meetings Law.”